If within your power, send me the particulars of the causes for which Lieut. Govr. Jacobs was arrested and sent away.

A. LINCOLN

Annotation

[1] ALS, DNA WR RG 107, Presidential Telegrams, I, 269. See Lincoln to Bramlette, November 22, supra. On December 26, 1864, Richard T. Jacob wrote Lincoln from Richmond, Virginia: ``On the night of the 11th of November last, I was arrested by the order of . . . General Burbridge at my country home. . . . I was carried to Lexington, and kept at General McLeans head quarters some two hours. I courted [?] and confidently expected to have had an interview with General Burbridge. I was by his orders carried under strict guard, and expelled through the Federal lines under the penalty of death if I returnedPage 183

during the war. I was thus forced by necessity into the Confederate lines, to accept the hospitality and protection of a people that I had fought against. . . . A poor return for wounds received, and hard service rendered to ones country. Even a thief has the boon of being condemned before he is punished. . . . It is difficult to defend ones self, when no charges are preferred. I have not even a conjecture to go on except a telegram that I had cut out of the Cincinnatti Commercial. Which is as follows, `The Post's Washington letter says the arrest of Lieutenant Governor Jacob will lead to important disclosures. There are rumors of a wide spread conspiracy existing in that State, not to take it over to a rebel confederacy, but to inaugurate a second revolution, the object of which is to make Kentucky independent of the General Government.' If my arrest would lead to important disclosures would not common sense have suggested that I should have been detained and examined. If there was a wide spread conspiracy I knew not of it, nor do I believe for one moment there was any such. I never was connected with a conspiracy. . . . True Mr. President I was opposed to your re-election, and it is the only charge that can with truth be brought against me. . . . Three days after the election I was seized. I find this in the Richmond Sentinel of the first of December taken from the Louisville Journal. [`]We are happy to announce that President Lincoln has consented to the release of Lieutenant Governor Jacob and Col. Frank Wolford. We sincerely hope that this may be the commencement of a new policy. . . .' Now Sir, I wish to find out whether this is true or not, and if so whether you will not order that I be passed through the lines to return to my duties as Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky. . . . As I have committed no crime, I ask not for pardon, but merely simple justice. . . .''

Captain J. Bates Dickson, assistant adjutant general in command in the absence of General Stephen G. Burbridge, answered Lincoln's telegram on December 28, 1864: ``So far as I am informed, . . . Jacob's offense was making treasonable and seditious speeches, calculated and intended to weaken the power of the Government. . . . His arrest was advised by Doctor [Robert J.] Breckinridge and other prominent loyal men of Kentucky. General Burbridge will address you fully on the subject upon his return. I have had no communication with him since the 14th instant, and do not know his present location'' (OR, I, XLV, II, 402).